“Nay, not I. There’s plenty of dangers, my lad, but we’re not going to be afraid of a thing that you could knock down with one of your hands so that it would never fly again. It ought to feel scared, not you.”
“Is that a firefly?” said Rob, after a few minutes’ silence, and he pointed to a soft, golden glow coming up the river five or six feet above the stream, and larger and more powerful than the twinkling lights appearing and disappearing among the foliage at the river’s edge.
“Yes, that’s a firefly; come to light you to bed, if you like. There, my lad, it’s sleep-time. Get under shelter out of the night damp. You’ll soon be used to all the buzzing and howling and—”
“That was a tiger, wasn’t it?” said Rob excitedly, as a shrill cry rang out somewhere in the forest and sent a thrill through him.
“No. Once more, that’s a lion, and he’s after monkeys, not after you, so good-night.”
Shaddy drew the sail over him as he stretched himself in the bottom of the roomy boat, and Rob crept in under the awning. The heavy breathing enabled him to make out exactly where his companions lay asleep, and settling himself down forward, he rested his head on his hand, convinced that sleep would be impossible, and preparing to listen to the faint rustling noise of the mooring rope on the gunwale of the boat, a sound which often suggested something coming on board.
Then he made sure what it was, and watched the faint glow thrown by the fire on the canvas till it seemed to grow dull—seemed, for the boatmen had arranged the wood so that from time to time it fell in, and hence it kept on burning up more brightly. But it looked dull to Rob and then black, for in spite of yells and screams and bellowings, the piping and fluting of frogs, the fiddling of crickets, and the drumming of some great toad, which apparently had a big tom-tom all to itself, Rob’s eyes had closed, and fatigue made him sleep as soundly as if he had been at home.
The sun was up when he awoke with a start to find Joe having his wash in a freshly dipped bucket of clean water, and upon joining him and looking ashore, it was to see Brazier bringing his botanic treasures on board to hang up against the awning to dry; while Shaddy had taken the skin of the jaguar, pegs and all, rolling it up and throwing it forward. The boatmen kept the kettle boiling and some cake-bread baking in the hot ashes. At the same time a pleasant odour of frizzling bacon told that breakfast would not be long.
“You are going to stay here for a day or two?” said Rob to Mr Brazier as he rubbed his face dry in the warm sunshine.
“No. Naylor says we shall do better farther on, and keep on collecting as we go, beside getting a supply of ducks or other fowl for our wants. The farther we are from the big river the easier it will be to keep our wants supplied.”